Description

Siye is one of the two major languages, along with Ulok, of the Martian Equator, It is spoken by nineteen million people in the Valley of the River. The Guild of Scholars estimates that there are twenty million speakers, but the Terrestrial conservative estimate separates one million speakers whose inclusion within the Simakim is more political than linguistic.

'Simakim', a key concept in linguistic and political thought, means 'area where the Siye language is spoken.' The Simakim is defined by the presence of a Siye-speaker with immovable property. If the Simayam (Siye speaker) is bilingual, the Siye portion is dominant under Siye law.

The Valley is a federation of city states and autonomous regions whose only unifying government is the Guild of Scholars, a body of grammarians based in the Central Province which regulates the grammar of Siye and therefore the validity of contracts. The Valley is divided into provinces, but unless there is need for military action, provinces are more geographical descriptions than political unities. The only permanent militia is maintained by the Far Western Province, which borders the Ulok-speaking Kingdom of Nesa.

Phonology and Orthography

Types of Orthography

The native Siye orthography, Keno Siye, is an abugida with ninety basic characters (the superimposed nasal coda is not counted), the Modern Basic Syllabary, in which all series, except the w-series and the s-series distinguish initial and medial (non-initial) characters. The Archaic Syllabary was not originally organized, but later the antecedents of the Guild of Scholars organized the characters in a matrix and modified some homographs. The change from Tide to Tiye to Siye required a reorganization of the matrix, which is now known as the Modern Basic Syllabary. There are no spaces in the script.

After the effects of vowel contraction or vowel dominance, there are additional characters modified from the basic characters to indicate grammatical suffixes, distinguish cases hidden by vowel dominance, and adjectival derivation, as well as an "alphabet" that allows for corrections, foreign pronunciations, and coda consonants. The positional suffix < na > is a basic character, but the perfective positive realis suffix < na >, adjacent to the positional suffix < na >, is the basic character < ne > modified by < a >. A noun such as < wino > is pronounced identically in the absolutive and vocative, but the second character of the vocative, < no > is the absolutive < no > modified by < i >. The orthography's ability to represent foreign pronunciation is important to missionary work. Superscript consonants and vowels indicate a correction. Subscript consonants indicate codas. Subscript vowels indicate the second part of diphthongs. The subscript coda consonants, in particular, are important for an accurate transcription of Ulok in Keno Siye.

In theory, a character is composed of a "mother", the principal skeleton, and a "daughter", the smaller detached parts. Exceptions are < To > (capitalization indicates an initial syllable) and < no >, which only have "daughters". The medial characters derive from prenasalized characters in earlier stages of the language, for which reason so many of them have the nasal dash. < Ta > and <na> differ only in the presence of the nasal dash. The mother is shared wit < Ta >, < na >, < ti >, and < Li >. The daughter is shared with < Ta >, < na >, < Te >, < ne >, < Ti >, < ni >, < To >, and < no >. This daughter is a mother in < Tu > and < nu >, while < na > uses this mother and the nasal dash. As stated above, the nasal dash occurs only in medial syllables, 35 of the total 90. The orphan daughters < To > and < no > have daughters of their own. Some half-size characters, such as < ya > and < Tu >, expand to full height, but < Yo > and < Ma > remain at half-height.

There are various Romanization schemes. The principal one (Standard), the one used in this document, hews close to the phonemic scheme of the native orthography. A Practical Orthography uses phonetics as its guiding principle. This system is rarer, but still common. Cyrillic and Hebrew orthographies also exist.

Orthography

Standard

Practical

pu

fu

ki

chi

ku

hu

tu

tsu

si

shi

Vm

Vng

Phonology

Consonants

Labial

Coronal

Alveolar

Palatal

Velar

Nasals

m[m]

n[n]

Plosives

p[p][pʰ]

t[t][tʰ]

k[k][kʰ]

Fricatives

p[ɸ]

s[s]

s[ʃ]

p[ç]

k[x]

Affricates

t[ts][tsʰ]

k[ʧ][ʧʰ]

p[tçʰ]

k[x]

Liquids

w[ʋ]

l[l]

y[j]

Miscellaneous

m[◌̃]

Outside the City, [ç] merges with [ʃ], even in Standard Siye.

Plosives and affricates are aspirated word-initially and verb-root-initially. Initial aspiration of plosives and affricates is far less common outside the City. m word-finally or before a consonant (including h) indicates a nasal vowel. h[0] is a placeholder after /m/ [ⁿ] and (in Early Siye and dialects) intervocalically.

Affrication

Place of Articulation

Before [u]

Before [i]

Notes

Labial

[p]

[ɸ]

[ç]

Initial Labial

[p]

[ɸ]

[tçʰ]

Dental

[t]

[ts]

[ʃ]

[ʃ] from [t] is an etymological spelling

Initial Dental

[tʰ]

[tsʰ]

[ʃ]

[ʃ] from [t] is an etymological spelling

Velar

[k]

[x]

[tʃ]

Initial Velar

[kʰ]

[x]

[tʃʰ]

Velar

[k]

[x]

[tʃ]

Initial Velar

[kʰ]

[x]

[tʃʰ]

Sibilant

[s]

[s]

[ʃ]

Initial Sibilant

[s]

[s]

[ʃ]

Oral Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close

i[i]

u[u]

High Mid

e[e]

o[o]

Low Mid

a[ə]

Open

a[a]

Nasal Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close-Mid

im[ɪⁿ]

um[ʊⁿ]

High Mid

Low Mid

em[ɛⁿ]

um[ʌⁿ]

om[ɔⁿ]

Open

am[æⁿ]

[ə] and [a], [ʊⁿ] and [ʌⁿ] are in free variation;

Update

As of 2246, unvoiced consonants are officially voiced before nasal vowels. In the City, this does not affect initial aspirated consonants, but in those dialects in which initial consonants are not aspirated, this voicing rule applies.

Nasalization and Advanced Tongue Root

In Standard Siye, the nasal vowels share the feature retracted tongue root (RTR), while the oral vowels share the feature advanced tongue root (ATR). In studies of Siye, the feature is defined as +ATR and -ATR. Standard Siye has the typologically rare 10-vowel ATR. The Near and Mid Provinces reduce the ATR system by removing [ə] in favor of a generalized [a].

Oral Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close

i[i]

u[u]

High Mid

e[e]

o[o]

Low Mid

Open

a[a]

Nasal Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close-Mid

im[ɪⁿ]

um[ʊⁿ]

High Mid

Low Mid

em[ɛⁿ]

om[ɔⁿ]

Open

am[aⁿ]

The Far Western Province uses a seven-vowel system:

Oral Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close

i[i]

u[u]

High Mid

Low Mid

ɛ[ɛ]

ɔ[ɔ]

Open

a[a]

Nasal Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close-Mid

im[ɪⁿ]

um[ʊⁿ]

High Mid

Low Mid

em[ɛⁿ]

om[ɔⁿ]

Open

am[aⁿ]

The Far Eastern Province and the Lake have a slightly different seven-vowel system:

Oral Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close

i[i]

u[u]

High Mid

Low Mid

ɛ[ɛ]

ɔ[ɔ]

Open

a[a]

Nasal Vowels

Front

Center

Back Unrounded

Back Rounds

Close

im[iⁿ]

Close-Mid

um[ʊⁿ]

High Mid

Low Mid

em[ɛⁿ]

om[ɔⁿ]

Open

am[aⁿ]

Vowel Dominance

Standard Siye vowels have a dominance system whereby one vowel eliminates an adjacent vowel rather than creating a long vowel or diphthong. Early Siye lacked this feature. The impact of vowel dominance in Siye is extensive, but many exceptions exist to avoid ambiguity. The dominance pattern follows a V-shape, starting in the high back, descending to low central, and ascending to high front. Thus the dominance hierarchy is as follows: /u/ > /o/ > /a/ > /e/ > /i/.

Stress Placement

Stress in Siye is is trochaic-dactylic. Polysyllabic affixes can only receive stress on the initial syllable. The combination of the following rules creates a complex primary-secondary stress pattern. Some regularly trisyllabic suffixes have bisyllabic allomorphs to conform to this pattern.

A Siye verb receives primary stress on the first syllable of the verb root; thus the verb /pelekopuyammu/[pe.le.kʰo.ɸu.jæⁿ.mu] and /lekunasonima/ [le.xu.so.ni.ma] receive primary stresses on /ko/ and /ku/.

The secondary stresses are distributed according to the following rules:

1) There is a minimum of one and maximum of two unstressed syllables between stressed syllable